Mother's Day Sewing

Yes I realise that Mother's Day was months ago, but I forgot to show everyone all the things I made!

The P&C at school was having a fundraising raffle for Mother's Day, so I made a few things to donate for that, and I also made something for my Mum, and something for my Nan.

First I made some fabric buckets.  I stuck with fabric I had lots of and didn't mind losing because there was no guarantee they were going to be won by people who were going to appreciate them.  I didn't want to waste anything too good so Ikea fabric it was.  And that stripey denim I was given for free after somebody gave my brother a big bolt of it!

The big one in the middle was made using a soft fabric basket tutorial I found on michael miller fabrics (that link goes directly to the pdf file of the tutorial).  I seem to recall I made a boo boo with the handles, but we won't mention that.  And the two smaller ones were based on this lovely tutorial from pippijoe.

And then I thought I'd make some keyfobs.  I did a bunch of googling and decided this tutorial at u create looked the best.  I didn't worry about buying proper clips for them though, just used some D rings and split rings I had already.

This was the first one that I made.. which I liked so much I promptly put on my own keys and then showed all my friends and told them how fobulous I was (and I'm still totally fobulous in case you're wondering)

And these are the ones I donated for the raffle.  I had to use some of my nicer fabrics for these because there was only a limited selection of ribbon of the right width in my ribbon tin and I had to try to match it.

The button one with the rainbow ribbon is my favourite!

Next up is the present I made for my own Mother.  She told me she wanted some kind of handbag organiser so after much hunting around for a free tutorial and not finding anything I liked, I ended up buying this pattern from You Can Make This.

 I deliberately sewed less pockets than the instructions said, so that each one would be a little bigger.  Some of my Mum's cancer treatment has damaged the nerves in her hands so she is not as dextrous as she used to be.

 And this is how it looked full of random crap from my bag, and with a totally fobulous key fob clipped to it!

 And then there's this cushion I made for my Grandmother. She probably didn't need it, but I've fancied making a cushion with a name on for ages so she got one!

And that was that!

I've made a bunch of other stuff in the last few months but I seem to have neglected to take photos before I gave things away again.  Oops.

A Rainbow Birthday Party

Genevieve's Rainbow Birthday Party is over, and since so much of my inspiration came from all over the internet I thought I should share our version.  So...

Welcome to Genevieve's Rainbow Party!

The frame in the above photo was from the Reject Shop, and the metal bucket was from a set of plant pots that I bought from Target last year.  Not that I keep plants in it, that's actually the one I keep my sewing scissors in.

I was naturally working my butt off on the day and my husband was in charge of photography so I don't have close ups of lots of stuff.. and some things I don't have photos of at all.  So yes, the above photo was taken this morning, not at the party.

And before we get too far, here are a couple of links to free printable rainbow party stuff that I found and used:  Printabelle and Paper Glitter.  The Welcome sign was made using Printabelle's Rainbow Stationery.  And I used Paper Glitters invitation, and also their thank you tag on the lolly bags.

The following photo was taking not long before guests started arriving.  No food out yet because this is Australia and it would have been covered in flies!

The balloon banner was made the night before using these instructions.  I spent $2 on a balloon pump before we tackled it.  Money well spent!

The backdrop was a set of cheap curtains I picked up from Ikea for $6.95.  They have wool strung through the top and they're just tied on to the patio.

And here's a photo showing the patio from the other direction showcasing our beautiful hand made decorations (all inspiration is linked on my Pinterest board). 

 The kids and I spent a morning the week before making the sun/cloud rainbow plates.  I made the tissue paper pom poms while I was watching tv one night, and there's also a garland made up of little paper stars that I made whilst watching tv over many nights... it was initially going to hang behind the food table, but it didn't look right with the balloons, so across the roof it went.

We also made a heap of paper chains in the lead up to the party, using ikea paper because it comes in the perfect rainbow colours.. and I forgot about them until the last minute.  So one ended up draped on our cubby (no photo of course), and the others are still above all the windows in our loungeroom where I had draped them to keep them out of the way.  Ah well.

 Anyway.. you can see a couple of the party activities in the photo up there.  On the small green table was colouring in (and a hula hoop apparently).  I printed out a stack of the smile colouring in page from style me gorgeous and put some wind ups and crayons into a cute little bucket.  Only one kid actually coloured a picture in.. not quite as successful as I had hoped.

The beaded pipe cleaner bracelet table did much better.  I don't think any of the boys wanted to do it, but all the girls made at least one. 

I also made a bean bag toss game!  The bean bags are made from flannel that I had already.  3 of them are filled with unpopped popcorn kernels, and then I ran out of corn so the fourth one is filled with soup mix.. it's a variety of dry beans and lentils.  Tasty :P

 

The bucket is an old BioZet bucket covered in wrapping paper. Yes, I buy my washing powder in a giant bucket.  The sign on the front was another one of Printabelle's printables.  I think it was the birthday party sign that I altered.

Another activity we had was a rainbow play parachute.  The kids loved it, unfortunately we don't have a single photo of it.. which sucks because it looked really cool.  I can tell you where I bought it though.. it's $19.95 from Deals Direct.  I threw all the balls from Geni's old baby ball pit pool on it and the kids had lots of fun bouncing them around, flipping them off, throwing them back on, and running underneath.  Definitely money well spent!

And since they were having so much fun with the parachute, and just generally running around, riding the bikes, racing swing cars, jumping on the trampoline, playing in our cubby and crawling in and out of our play tunnels and tents.. we ended up only playing one game, which was Pin the Cloud on the Rainbow!

I painted the rainbow myself (based it on some clipart I found online) and put a big X on one of the clouds.  The clouds that the kids were sticking were a cloud shape that I found online.  All printed and cut out with the kids names already on them and a blob of blutac on the back.

I sewed a face mask to cover their eyes out of rainbow flannel.. but I have no photos of it.  I'm not even sure where my kids put it.. just imagine a face mask made out of the same stripey flannel as one of the bean bags I mentioned earlier!

And now for the food!

It's a bit hard to see, but I have some rainbow coloured bowls that I bought from Crazy Clarks yeeeears ago.  I colour coordinated food in those:  Red had cocktail franks, Orange had Cheezels, Yellow had Chicken Twisties, Green had green popcorn (that I coloured myself), Blue had Blueberry Cloud lollies, and Pink (which I pretended was purple) had sweet potato chips.. the purple kind obviously!

The cups and plates were all from Ikea.  I already had a couple of sets of each so I just went and grabbed a couple more.  I printed out lovely little rainbow sticker labels with all the kids names so they could find their cups again.  Drinks were Red, Orange or Green Cordial (in Ikea jugs) or water.
 

 There were chocolate crackles on the cupcake stand on the left.. I put rainbow sprinkles in them, as seen in this photo I took of the leftovers the next day.

Confetti cookies were on the white cake stand on the right.. which are always a big hit!  Recipe can be found here.  I always make these dairy free so Lilly can eat them too (Here, have another leftovers photo)

 Rainbow Jelly Cups!  They took me all of Friday to make because I thought it was a good idea to do EVERY colour of the rainbow. No idea how they tasted because I hate jelly, but they sure did look awesome!

 And yes, this is a leftovers photo too... That second tray full might have been too many!

There was also an M&M dispenser full of M&Ms, a couple of plates full of fairy bread (too much of that too), a couple of plates full of my hand made sausage rolls (never enough of those), and a few bowls scattered around with lollies in them (the leftovers from decorating the cake).

Speaking of her cake, this was it!  I wanted to make one of those awesome layered rainbow cakes that are all over the internet, but Geni wanted a butterfly, so inside this butterfly is a rainbow marble cake..

I will admit there was a bit of a shamozzle with the cake.. After all but a few of the kids had left somebody said "what about the cake?" and I said "oh shit the cake" and then a small child said "uhoh Mummy you said shit!".. so yes.. I forgot the cake.  It's just we were having so much fun.. and.. yeah, I forgot... oops.

But it was okay because we sang happy birthday with the kids who were left and we all had a giant slice.

At least I remembered to give everyone their lolly bags before they left!

The End

Hermione Costume

The middle child wanted a Hermione costume for her magic themed school assembly.  Naturally she decided to tell me this on Monday afternoon. The assembly was on Thursday.

I think we did okay though!

The cardigan, tights and hat she already owned.  The black shoes belong to her sister.  The white button up is mine.  The skirt came from a trip to the op shop on Tuesday (it cost me $3).  I made the tie and wand myself.

I was hoping to find a gold tie that I could add stripes to at the op shop but they had none, luckily I did find a gold pillowcase for $1 that I promptly cut up.

I used this Little Boys Tie pattern from The Purl Bee (although I do admit I did far less hand sewing than they did).

I cut out the pattern first, and then used masking tape to block out the gold stripes.  Those red stripes are an entire little tube of crimson fabric paint from a box of paints I've had in the cupboard for ages.  I almost didn't have enough to do the whole tie, so that's why there are a couple of patches where it's a bit light on.

The wand was made using paper and hot glue!  I followed these brilliant instructions.  It turned out really well, although there are a couple of spots with dodgy paint.  It's a bit of a dodgy brown because I didn't have any brown paint.  I had to mix it up using a combination of red, yellow and lavender.. Plus I was trying to do it in a hurry late at night, so didn't wait for each coat of paint to completely dry before I did the next one.  It turns out that not quite dry paint rubs off.  Crazy! ;)

All up, I spent $4.  Not bad.

If she'd given me more time I would have sewed a robe too!

A Gift for my Mum

This was an idea I had seen on a few blogs, and filed away in my mind.

Just before Mothers Day this year I realised that my Mum now had the same number of grand kids as there are letters in the word Nanna.  Unfortunately it was about 2 days before Mothers Day, so we decided to do it for her birthday a few weeks later instead!

I went and bought an N and an A, painted them white, and we met up with my brother and his brood down at the park to take some photos.

The day we chose was pretty crappy, very overcast, we had a sleepy baby and it was occasionally sprinkling, plus our decent camera decided to kick the bucket so we had to use our little point and shoot Sony instead, but we did our best.

I took as many photos of each kid as I could so make sure we got at least one decent one of each of them, the middle child ruined almost all of hers because you could see her underpants when she was sitting on the ground (which I didn't realise at the time).  Luckily I took a couple of her standing up as well.


I spent ages making collages in picassa trying to get just the right group of shots together.. we ended up with a few different variations..

This was the only photo of the bubby looking, but we decided that the A didn't stand out enough against her dress.

 
I liked this one but my niece really wanted me to use the photo of her sitting down, rather than standing up..

So this was the final group..

I think it turned out pretty well!

Handbag Organiser Rolls and Coffee Cozys

Catch up post #3!

I have the tutorials for these bookmarked somewhere, I'll add the links when I find them!

These were gifts for a friend of ours, and one of my cousins.  And I have since made myself a handbag organiser roll too, very handy!

 On the left is a handbag organiser roll all folded up and empty, on the right is a coffee cup cozy.

 This is the organiser all laid out flat.  It's basically just a long strip with pockets of various sizes to put all your bits and bobs in.  There's one big long one for a wallet, and smaller ones for your phone etc.

 And this is how it looks with some random stuff from my handbag in it.

 The Coffee Cozy has insul-brite in it so no burnt fingers.. in theory, I've never actually tested it.  PS. Lets pretend that this glass that I used in this action shot was sparkling clean, not the one I was guzzling coke from while I was sewing.

Note the matching self cover buttons.  I love those things!

And these are the ones I made for my cousin.. I think.  Maybe I got that mixed up.  Nevermind, doesn't matter who owns it!

Do you like my hand drawing of a coffee cup?  Presentation! :P

I also put little rectangles of cardboard in each pocket of the roll with labels of suggested items for each pocket.  Blogger seems to think this photo should be sideways, I have given up arguing with it.  Just turn your head :P

And apparently I never took a photo of my one.  It looks just like those, but it has cute ikea animal fabric inside instead.  Very handy indeed!

Fold up Bread Basket

Catch up post number 2!

So, at some point early this year I made a little housewarming gift for some friends of ours when we went to visit them at their new house.  It's a fold up bread basket, with a little cloth that you can wrap around the bread when you want it covered.

I.. think I put a layer of batting in between the cotton lining and the sturdier exterior fabric.  Honestly I can't remember..

Ikea fabric on the outside.  When you untie the ties it is a flat square you can just fold up and shove in a drawer.

Naturally I filled this brand new bread basket with freshly baked dairy free choc chip muffins.  The purple you can see is the napkin I put under them so they didn't mess up the lining.

And this is how it looked all ready to go..

 

I seem to recall I made a minor boo boo when I was drawing the curves on the corners of the lining so the gap is a little bigger than I intended when it's all folded over, you can see some muffins poking out of the corners.. but I don't think that's a huge problem.

A Car Mat for my nephew

So I haven't put any of my craft on here for a while.  My bad.  Time for some catch up posts!

By the way, before we start looking at these photos I would appreciate it if you could just pretend that I had mopped my floor before taking them. Look at those sparkling clean tiles on the floor in your kids lounge room you could say! :P

So anyway, this is the car play mat that I made for my nephew for Christmas!

The idea came from here.   They don't give you much in the way of measurements so I just guessed how big to make it.

I also decided to add a little house instead of the pond.

As you can see, there is a monkey in the house.

The back is cord with construction pictures printed on it that I got from a remnant bin, but it wasn't quite big enough so I put a panel of chequered cotton in. I also had long ribbons that could be tied in bows like the one on the fiskars site, but I didn't like how they looked so I cut those shorter and added velcro.
 

And this is it all rolled up with cars in the pockets, ready to wrap.